Chapter 2. Time for ceremonies.
It was just to awful! He was dead, gone from her. She sat holding his
cold body in her lap, mourning over the worlds great lost. Her mentor
had been shut for a first aid kit and medicine supplies he'd gladly
would have given if just they asked for it.
The Shack of a building started to claps as the earth timbales at the
might of the bombs being exploded near and far.
Quickly she changed positions, wrapping his arms around her neck, and
dragging his feet
behind, she tried to get him out.
He would at least receive a proper burial. Stubbornly she fought to bring
his body mas, which was well
more then twice her own, under her control.
"Miss! What are you doing?" A soldier asks and came running to her aid.
He took the carcass off her back only to be mortified. "He's dead! You
need to get out of the aria now! The Rebel soldiers are
moving in."
"I have to burry him before evacuating." She dared the soldier to tell
her other wise.
She didn't care what army was coming next, the gorillas and scavengers
had already destroyed half the village and
killed the one person she cared about more then her own life.
"You realize this will be your funeral too?" He complained but continued
to carry the dead man to some soft ground where they could dig easily.
"What's your name kid?" He asked of her.
"Dr. Po" She answers.
He looked at her oddly, "you're just a kid!"
"I'm seventeen years old. I was... studding under Doctor Winthorp." She
pointed to her beloved teacher.
For years she'd been bounced around the two worlds of America and China
as
her parents fought for her in an ugly divorce war. But this kindly old
man had taken
her under his wings and tot her every thing she knew. Why would any one
kill him, it was so senseless
"Well, what's your first name?" The soldier had his small shovel out of
his pack and
got started on the grave.
"Sally," She stared digging with her hands like a dog, "and who are you?"
"My name is Ryan Tanner, but as for who I am, well-" He waved his hand in
a jester to indicate his uniform, "this says it all."
She studied the embalms on his sleeves & shoulders, a Lieutenant his
markings proudly proclaimed.
Then she noticed his helmet. "Can I use you're helmet?"
He handed it over to her with a smile, "sure Sally." Taking it she
started to scup up dirt in to the helmet like a shovel.
"HEY!! That's not how you use that thing!" He exclaimed. She didn't
look back at him but kept working, "I'll get the dirt out before giving
it back."
He cringed with dismay. "Keep it, Kid." he put infuses on 'kid' as if to
call her a dirty name. She tried to ignore
it, she did not like being called a kid.
Four minutes of working in silence went quite slowly. Sally could
have gone on in the silence for a lot longer, but Ryan was getting
restless. "Why a doctor?"
"What do you mean?" She asked back, working as fast as her arms would
allow, but they felt like falling off.
"You're offaly young to be a doctor, most ~kids~," There was that insult
again, "your age don't even know what they want to be or do, much less
gone through the schooling."
"I like medicine and helping people."
She took a few minutes to catch her breath before attacking the ground
with more
vengeance then before. "Where," scupped some dirt out, "I come," dumps
dirt
out, "from" another scup, "The doctor is the most respected person
around."
"And where might you be form?" He heaved another great big shovel
scup up, and tossed it to the side.
"Kansas and Singapore."
He paused in his work, "oh?" He couldn't quite figure out how she
could be from both places, and she could tell from his facial
expression.
"My mother is... was.. a journalist from Kansas, my father is in
Singapore, I spend most of my time traveling between the two." Her heart
renched, now she'd either stay in this jungle as a doctor or go back to
Singapore, with her mother dead there wasn't any thing left in Kansas for
her.
"This should do." He proclaimed, picking Sally up out of the hole and
grabbing Dr.Winthorp's body to put down in it.
"It is not six feet deep yet." She points out.
"Yes, yes, but we have to get out of here. Lesson," he paused so she
could hear the sound of Mobil suits coming their way.
"He needs a proper burial." She protest.
"KID," he hissed at her, "I feel for you. I really do, but I'm not going
to let your
death be on my hands, you can die on some other soldiers shift!"
With those words said he started to toss the dirt back down as quickly as
possible, "there will be time for ceremonies later. Find some thing
to mark his grave, so you can come back later.
Half heartily she obeyed. He was right after all, though she felt that
she owed the doctor more, he'd been more of a father in the past two
years then her birth father had ever been.
When she stuck a stick in the ground with a red ribbon tide to it as a
marker Ryan grabbed her up in his huge arms and carried her in to the
jungle, just in time to avoid the start of the rebel missile attack.
She watched the remains of what had been her home for the last seven
months be come rouble in seconds.
Then what she thought was the most horrifying thing that could happen,
happened right in front of her
eyes.
A stray missile from a Mobil suit hit Dr.Winthorps grave.
What appeared to be one of his legs came flying up in to the air and
landed in a tree only inches from her face.
"No... Doctor," She stared in horror as Ryan carried her farther away,
and deeper in to the dins deep jungle of Australia. But she could see the
leg muscles had been shredded to bits, sagging off of the shin bone. Dirt
mingled with blood. She gasped for breath, no. No. No. No!! This couldn't
have been happening.
Just and hour earlier she'd been coming back to the shack that was
used as the village hospital. Enjoying herself very much.
The sun was bright and worm, the air a little muggy but bearably so.
Children where laughing and playing.
Now how ever she sat beside some of the survivors in the jungle grasping
at straws for a way out.
The gorilla fighters where ruthless out laws who'd slaughter any one with
dealings with the federation as soon as they'd look at them. And the
rebels where paranoid about spys, they trusted Federation troops in
uniforms more then the civilians.
The good Dr.Winthorp had tried to explain the government's bad handling
of the situation over here upon their arrival to set up the hospital
seven months prier.
The little continent of Australia had been torn between the idea of
separating from the Alliance, and
staying with what had be come an overly militarized government. Some had
organized them selves and tried to established a more suiting locale
government for themselves, but the Alliance feared that if to many broke
away from the one world country that it would claps.
Hastily they had sent out spys to crush this rebellion. How ever the
cruelty that fallowed only gave way to the evil men of Australia to form
an anarchy force only called Ausy Gorillas.
Not all Gorilla forces where so ruthless and unjust in their fighting,
but one could
never tell why some one else had taken up arms, so it was best to avoid
all Gorilla troops.
"SALLY!" Ryan came running up to her and wrapped his arms around her in a
hug, "My unit is moving out, take care, alright. You're a good kid. I
hope to see you some time after this." He smiled brightly and Sally felt
her heart doing funning things.
He slammed his helmet down on to her head. "You'll need this to protect
that beautiful mind of
yours, and your hair." He turned and had waved happily, as if the idea of
going of to fight was a thrill.
Sally felt some one tug on her hand and she looked down to see some of
the
kids looking up at her.
"Miss Sally," One starts, he was a sweet little boy with brown eyes and
incredibly
dirty hair, "-It's DR. Sally!" Another of the boys corrected him.
"Well then, Dr. Sally, do you know where our parents went to?"
Looking around calmly and assured of herself all she saw where dirty
faces.
Some she recognized as being the children from the village, the others
she suspected where Alliance soldiers out of uniform.
"Wait here." She smiled politely at them and went on over to a young
girl, who couldn't have been more then 13 years old.
"Do you know where the other survivors from the village are?" She asked
in a hushed tone.
The 13 year old looked at her coldly with dark blue piercing eyes, "there
are no other survivors." She says in a mater of fact way.
The news in of its self was terrifying to hear, but the delivery of it
was unnerving.
Sally turned back to the children, but words would not come when she
tried to speak. How do you tell twelve kids
all under the age of ten that they'd never again see their fathers and
mothers in this life time. And dear lord what about those with brothers
and sister lost as well?! Whole families destroyed.
The number of innocent lives lost ran threw her mind as she recalled all
the faces of those not present, there must have been more then a hundred
gone.
"Une! Move these people out of here, the Rebels are coming closer. You
have to get them to the beach. A sub will be waiting to evacuate them out
of this hell hole." Some one obviously in Command orders the 13 year old.
"Yes." She said soberly. "Come on!" She started to herd all of them,
Sally included, through the jungle.
They trudged on for what felt like a year, but only an half hour.
Slowly Sally found her voice again and tried to be a comfort for all the
orphans.
Orphans who'd had a good life, families who loved them, a home and a
school to be proud of this morning when they woke up. Now it was all
changed, all gone.
Sally felt like an orphan too. Her Mother dead of cancer, her father
becoming to busy as a diplomat to come to her graduation, and her
minter...Not even in a grave! She fought back the tiers as the thought of
Dr.Winthorp and his leg came to her mind.
No, she mustn't cry now. If the others saw they would lose what hope they
might have.
And the tears she wished to shed where not of self petty, but in memory
of every one else pain.
Some thing cot the corner of her eye. Looking to make sure it wasn't
gorillas she saw the
federation troops trying to move stealthily through the brush.
"Glad you've made it so far." A man's voice whispered, he was ducking
behind a tree beside her.
It was Ryan, she was surprised to see him again so soon, but she kept
quite, not wanting to give away his position
to any enemy that might be near by.
"Take cover!" Une yelled, right as a Leo suit showed up from no where and
started to fire it's main
gun at them. Sally lied on her stomach, holding the hand of a trembling
nine year old that she'd become quite good friends with in the light of
the days events.
There was a strange sound to her side and some thing splattered on her
face. Turning she saw Ryan's headless body.
Blood ran down her face, "ahh..." Tears came poring out of her eyes, this
was to much. She'd seen battles in the dentins, patched back to gather
civilians and soldiers alike on a few a cations. Never had it been so
personal though.
Missiles started to fire. The Rebels to their left where firing on the
gorillas to the right.
Une grabbed Sally's and the nine year old's hands. They ran on through
the muck. Trees branches beating on their bodies as they rushed past. The
missile attack was getting to bad to try and out run. Une threw them to
the ground and
ducked down.
"Aaahahhaaa," Sally shook violently and wiped what she knew, thanks to
her Medical training, to be Ryan's brains off of her face. The brush had
wiped some of it away already, but some still remained on her. The
children looked shocked at Sally, the woman that had been their pillar of
strength so far.
"When is this war going to end?" Her tears mingled with some of the
blood. She whipped it away from her cheeks and mouth furiously. She
wasn't going to taste of that!
Finely a hand reached out and struck her hard across the cheek. "Now you
have some thing to cry about!"
Une says with what apers to be hate.